{"id":13419,"date":"2014-05-24T23:35:03","date_gmt":"2014-05-25T07:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=13419"},"modified":"2014-05-25T10:37:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T18:37:19","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-draft-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-draft-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: Conference Edition—and More!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Say Fight Back!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You’re Welcome to Join Us for the Rouge Forum Conference and David Barsamian leading the\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture \u00a0\u00a0 rougeforumconference.wordpress.com\/rf-2014-program-schedule\/<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"renner<\/a><\/p>\n

Rouge Forum 2014 runs from June 5-7 at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Check out the details here. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 rougeforumconference.wordpress.com\/adam-renner-education-for-social-justice-lecture\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Every year the Rouge Forum honors the life and work of Adam Renner (August 18, 1970 \u2013 December 19, 2010) by inviting a critical scholar, educator, or activist to deliver the Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture.<\/p>\n

Adam was a teacher, scholar, musician, revolutionary activist, martial artist, and lover of life. His courage took remarkable forms, from being willing to sacrifice to help others, to always learning, and altering his views, on the path to discover what is true in order to make the world a little better. What could be a more powerful legacy?<\/p>\n

He received his BA in Mathematics from Thomas More College. While teaching mathematics at Seton High School in Cincinnati, OH, he completed his MEd at Northern Kentucky University. In 2002, Adam received his PhD in Cultural Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and subsequently worked as a professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY.<\/p>\n

His scholarship focused on service learning, social difference, social justice, and pedagogy and he published in numerous journals including Educational Studies, EcoJustice Review, High School Journal, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, Rethinking Schools and more. (Many of Adam\u2019s publications are available to read here.)<\/p>\n

Along with his life partner, Gina Stiens, he created a service partnership with schools and social service organizations in Jamaica and taught an ongoing course, \u201cEducation for Liberation or Domination: A Critical Encounter in Jamaica.\u201d He was a key leader and organizer in the Rouge Forum serving as Community Coordinator and as editor of the Rouge Forum News.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 2010, Adam left his professorship at Bellarmine University and returned to the school classroom, as a math teacher at June Jordan School for Social Equity in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

www.youtube.com\/watch?v=F8rfeWt7UCE<\/a><\/p>\n

Anger erupts at Detroit meetings as unions press for pension cuts \u00a0(who is next?) \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>Widespread anger over cuts to pensions and health care benefits erupted at two meetings attended by hundreds of retired Detroit city workers Wednesday. The meetings were called by the court-appointed Official Committee of Retirees\u2014a nine-member board of union officials and lawyers\u2014to pressure workers into accepting the bankruptcy restructuring plan drafted by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and federal mediators. \u00a0The so-called Plan of Adjustment targets more than 23,000 retired workers and surviving spouses for cuts in pensions and related benefits of 30 percent or more. In addition, the city is ending employer-paid retiree health care benefits and cutting its obligations by 90 percent by forcing thousands of retired workers to pay unsustainable costs for inferior care. \u00a0 The Plan of Adjustment is the outcome of a political conspiracy supported by both big business parties and powerful financial and legal firms to use federal bankruptcy laws to overturn Michigan\u2019s constitutional prohibitions against the \u201cimpairment\u201d of public employee pensions. The Obama administration has backed this process in order to use Detroit as a model for similar attacks on public-sector workers across the country. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2014\/05\/23\/detr-m23.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Police killings of Hispanics spark protests in Salinas, California<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0The central California city of Salinas is being rocked with unrest and violence after protesters accused police of racism and brutality in the fatal shootings of three Latino men since March, including one captured on grainy video this week.<\/p>\n

Demonstrations peaked Wednesday night when a man was shot to death outside his home near an anti-police protest. The circumstances of that shooting, which did not involve police, are being investigated, police said.<\/p>\n

When authorities responded to that homicide, demonstrators went to the scene and threw bricks, bottles, sticks and rocks at police and EMS personnel as they aided the shooting victim, police said. One bottle struck the head of an officer who was giving CPR to the victim, stopping him from giving aid, police said.<\/p>\n

The shooting victim, Constantino Garcia, 23, who had just moved to Salinas with his wife and child, was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said. Detectives said about 100 people saw the homicide, but no witnesses are cooperating with police.\u00a0 www.cnn.com\/2014\/05\/22\/us\/california-protest-police-shooting-hispanics\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Video–were cops justified in using deadly force?\u00a0\u00a0 www.ksbw.com\/news\/central-california\/salinas\/Salinas-police-release-more-video-of-May-20-shooting\/26132758<\/a><\/p>\n

Threatening Mandela’s ANC Betrayals—a 16 Week Long Miners’ Strike \u00a0<\/strong>On Wednesday, stick-wielding strikers from AMCU prevented others from returning to Lonmin’s shafts.\u00a0 www.reuters.com\/article\/2014\/05\/15\/us-safrica-strike-idUSBREA4E0CA20140515<\/a><\/p>\n

The Little Red Schoolhouse<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"School<\/a><\/p>\n

In Capitalist America: Segregation in Michigan schools prevails despite some progress \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Blacks are seeing more school segregation today than they have in decades, and more than half of Latino students are now attending schools that are majority Latino, according to a report by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.<\/p>\n

Researchers found that progress toward integrated classrooms has largely been rolled back since the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. On May 17, 1954, the high court ruled: \u201cIn the field of public education, the doctrine of \u2018separate but equal\u2019 has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, today in New York, California and Texas, more than half of Latino students are enrolled in schools that are 90 percent minority or more, the report found. And in New York, Illinois, Maryland and Michigan, more than half of black students attend schools where 90 percent or more are minority.<\/p>\n

Project co-director Gary Orfield, author of the report called \u201cBrown at 60,\u201d said the changes are troubling because they show some minority students receive poorer educations than white students and Asian students, who tend to be in middle-class schools. The report urged, among other things, deeper research into housing segregation, which is a \u201cfundamental cause of separate-and-unequal schooling.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the Supreme Court ruling, scores of cities and towns implemented desegregation plans that often included mandatory busing, in some cases triggering an exodus of whites to private schools or less diverse communities.<\/p>\n

The moves had some effect in Michigan, where elements of segregation have lessened since 1980 when the state was among the most segregated in several categories studied. Since then, when it was the state with the smallest percentage of black students (18 percent) in majority white schools, Michigan has dropped to the 12th spot (25.1 percent) in the 2011-12 survey, based on federal statistics.From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com\/article\/20140522\/SCHOOLS\/305220039#ixzz32c5Iioqg<\/a><\/p>\n

Thank Obamagogue, Arne, NEA, AFT, local union hacks, Dems……Public School Funding Falls in Fiscal 2012, First Time Since 1977–Decline in Federal Funding Cited; State, Local Spending Slightly Higher \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Funding for U.S. public elementary and secondary schools decreased by $4.9 billion in fiscal year 2012, the first recorded drop since the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting the data in 1977, according to a report released by the bureau Thursday. Total funding of nearly $595 billion was down 0.8% from the previous year. \u00a0\u00a0 online.wsj.com\/news\/articles\/SB10001424052702303749904579578423735484600<\/a><\/p>\n

Students: Screw Your bogus survey and you too–<\/strong>But a new research paper points out one huge potential flaw in all this research: kids who skew the results by making stuff up for a giggle. “Mischievous Responders,” they’re called. They may say they’re 7 feet tall, or weigh 400 pounds, or have three children. They may exaggerate their sexual experiences, or lie about their supposed criminal activities. In other words, kids will be kids, especially when you ask them about sensitive issues.<\/p>\n

Jackson Terry, 14, says he answered honestly when he took one of these surveys last year, but he knows kids who didn’t. “They handed out the sheet, I believe it was in language class,” says Terry, who’s from Granville, Ohio. “The teacher was in the room. It was anonymous. I think they asked us about bullying, do you feel safe in school, some questions about drugs, the learning environment.” \u00a0Some kids “would joke through the entire thing and have a cocky attitude about it,” Terry says. “Afterwards some would say, yeah, No. 5, that’s totally not true; I just made something up.” \u00a0\u00a0 www.npr.org\/blogs\/ed\/2014\/05\/22\/313166161\/mischievous-responders-confound-research-on-teens<\/a><\/p>\n

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Drone<\/a>poster available from Leslie Dwyer \u00a0\u00a0 www.design4peace.com\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Obamagogue’s Perpetual Drone War (no more nor less than his many other wars) \u00a0<\/strong>When a barrage of drone-fired missiles hit al Qaeda cells in Yemen in mid-April and killed dozens of militants, the results were strikingly different from a mistaken U.S. attack on a Yemeni wedding convoy just four months earlier.But even though the drones apparently found their targets this time, they were still blamed for a number of civilian deaths.<\/p>\n

It was a stark reminder that a year after Obama laid out new conditions for drone attacks around the world, U.S. forces are failing to comply fully with the rules he set for them: to strike only when there is an imminent threat to Americans and when there is virtually no danger of taking innocent lives. Although Obama promised greater transparency in his speech at the National Defense University, U.S. lawmakers are increasingly critical of the secrecy surrounding the operations.<\/p>\n

Despite some spectacular drone hits that took out militant leaders in places such as Yemen and Pakistan, there are growing concerns in Washington that the net effect of the targeted-killing program may be counterproductive. “Collateral damage” is seen as an al Qaeda recruiting tool that undercuts the main rationale for the drone campaign – to make Americans safer. \u00a0\u00a0 www.newsweek.com\/obamas-drone-war-shows-no-signs-ending-252158<\/a><\/p>\n

Pilger: Break the silence: a world war is beckoning \u00a0<\/strong>Washington’s role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us. For the first time since the Reagan years, the US is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last “buffer state” bordering Russia is being torn apart. We in the west are backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler. Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington’s planned seizure of Russia’s historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century.
\nBut Nato’s military encirclement has accelerated, along with US-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained “pariah” role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 johnpilger.com\/articles\/break-the-silence-a-world-war-is-beckoning<\/a><\/p>\n

Obamagogue’s (add half-witted Susan Rice) Libya Disintegrating \u00a0<\/strong>Gunmen stormed Libya’s parliament on Sunday in an anti-government rebellion that is spreading across the country.Members of a militia allied to renegade general Khalifa Hiftar hit the building with anti-aircraft guns and rockets, causing MPs to flee in panic as parts of the complex caught fire.<\/p>\n

The attack followed three days of fighting in the eastern capital, Benghazi, between Hiftar’s forces and pro-government militias that has left 70 dead. \u00a0Thick smoke billowed from the headquarters of the national congress building after the attack by a militia from Zintan. \u00a0…Meanwhile the US has put Marine forces on standby in Sicily, Tunisia has moved 5,000 troops to the border and Algerian commandos have evacuated their ambassador from Tripoli. \u00a0\u00a0 www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/may\/18\/gunmen-storm-libyan-parliament<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Lukacs\"<\/a>above, Lukacs’ “Defense of History and Class Consciousness”<\/em><\/p>\n

In the absence of a class conscious social movement, coupled with the eradication of history, and a consumerist society, things also get weird inside the military\u00a0<\/strong>Fort Stewart, in southeast Georgia, is the home of the 3rd Infantry Division, which led the invasion of Iraq, in 2003. It is the largest military installation in the East, more than three times the size of Atlanta. Separated from the neighboring town of Hinesville by security checkpoints, it combines suburban living and Army discipline; inside the gates are low-slung brick buildings that wouldn\u2019t be out of place in a strip mall, set off by grassy fields, a Burger King, a commissary store. Aguigui belonged to a squadron of five hundred soldiers, of whom about eighty were stationed at Fort Stewart\u2014the rear guard for the soldiers who had deployed to Mosul, Iraq. On the base, new privates mingled with soldiers returning from difficult tours of duty.<\/p>\n

After Deirdre\u2019s death, Aguigui was relegated to the barracks for single soldiers, known as a center for drinking and easy hookups. He threw a keg party and broke down in tears in the middle of it. He went to the Temptations strip club, across the border in South Carolina, and the higher-end Platinum Plus. He ended up dating two strippers, and, they later said, gave them thousands of dollars to help pay bills. At after-parties with the strippers, he smoked a synthetic marijuana called Spice; he snorted bath salts and cocaine and took Ecstasy. As Aguigui\u2019s friend and fellow-soldier Sergeant Michael Schaefer told me, from a jail in Columbia, where he was serving time for robbery, \u201cHe started going crazy.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0 www.newyorker.com\/reporting\/2014\/05\/26\/140526fa_fact_labi?currentPage=all<\/a><\/p>\n

Suddenly–World Concern For Nigerian Girls <\/strong>Intelligence agents from all over the globe have poured into this city, Nigeria\u2019s capital, to help find the nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram more than a month ago \u2014 but there has been little or no progress in bringing the young women home. The problem, many involved in the rescue effort say, is the failings of the Nigerian military.<\/p>\n

There is a view among diplomats here and with their governments at home that the military is so poorly trained and armed, and so riddled with corruption, that not only is it incapable of finding the girls, it is also losing the broader fight against Boko Haram. The group has effective control of much of the northeast of the country, as troops withdraw from vulnerable targets to avoid a fight and stay out of the group\u2019s way, even as the militants slaughter civilians. \u00a0Boko Haram\u2019s fighters have continued to strike with impunity this week, killing dozens of people in three villages in its regional stronghold, but also hitting far outside its base in the central region. Car bombs have killed well over 100, according to local press reports. \u00a0\u00a0 www.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/24\/world\/africa\/nigerias-army-holding-up-hunt-for-taken-girls.html?hp<\/a><\/p>\n

Nigeria (CIA World Factbook) \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Nigeria20Export20Breakout\"<\/a>Crude oil – production:
\n2.524 million bbl\/day (2012 est.)
\ncountry comparison to the world: 12<\/p>\n

Crude oil – exports:
\n2.341 million bbl\/day (2010 est.)
\ncountry comparison to the world: 5<\/p>\n

Crude oil – imports:
\n0 bbl\/day (2010 est.)
\ncountry comparison to the world: 104<\/p>\n

Crude oil – proved reserves:
\n37.2 billion bbl (1 January 2013 es)
\ncountry comparison to the world: 10 \u00a0https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/library\/publications\/the-world-factbook\/geos\/ni.html<\/p>\n

Gitmo–the torture continues (Obamagogue Lied) \u00a0<\/strong>The seemingly unending struggle over Guant\u00e1namo Bay \u2014 the prison President Obama vowed to close shortly after he was sworn in \u2014 is again reverberating over an \u201canguishing\u201d case of force-feeding a Syrian detainee.The case involves Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab, a Syrian who has been held for 12 years without a trial, and who has gone on prolonged hunger strikes. Late Thursday, a Federal District Court judge lifted an order barring his force-feeding, even as she rebuked the military for using procedures that she said caused \u201cagony.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0 www.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/24\/us\/judge-allows-military-to-force-feed-guantanamo-detainee.html?emc=edit_th_20140524&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=2254121&_r=0<\/a><\/p>\n

Superstitious Chocolate Tycoon Heads to Victory in Fake Election in Ukraine\u00a0<\/strong>For a man with presidential ambitions, it was not a propitious scene. Petro Poroshenko stood atop a bulldozer between a line of police and an angry crowd chanting expletives at him. Shouting into a loudhailer he urged calm, asking protesters to desist from storming the presidential headquarters in Kiev. Hardcore elements in the crowd didn’t like his speech; they responded with jeers of “dickhead” and “Jew trash”. (Actually, Poroshenko is a Christian.) Someone dragged him off his perch. Others managed to rescue him from this seething frontline. Masked youths grabbed the tractor and used it as a battering ram to force a path though police. Clouds of smoke billowed across Ukraine’s warring capital.<\/p>\n

This was early December. Six months later Poroshenko is on the brink of becoming Ukraine’s new president. Opinion polls suggest he will win the first round of Sunday’s presidential election by a landslide. Such is his lead he may even beat his nearest rival, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, in the first round, avoiding the need for a run-off vote on 15 June.For Poroshenko, it has been a steep rise to popularity that begs two questions: how has he managed it? And will this support help him accomplish one of the toughest jobs in the world today: running Ukraine?…According to Alexander Temerko, a London-based Russian businessman, Poroshenko is driven by deep religious convictions. He is a member of Ukraine’s Orthodox church, and has financed the restoration of its buildings and monasteries. In high-level meetings he is often seen fiddling with a crucifix.<\/p>\n

“Religion is important to many Ukrainians,” Temerko said. “This gives him a fantastic advantage over other candidates, especially among simple people. Like Greece, Ukraine is a country of Christianity.” \u00a0\u00a0 www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/may\/23\/petro-poroshenko-heads-landslide-ukraine-election?CMP=ema_565<\/a><\/p>\n

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Obama, Geithner and the Missing Six Trillion Dollars<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Profits<\/a>Graph (1): Contrary to the view on Wall Street and within the Western economic establishment restoration of Wall Street has not \u2018fixed\u2019 the economy. The policies of Mr. Geithner, the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve have \u2018fixed\u2019 profits, compensation and bonuses for Wall Street. The drop in median income is evidence of ongoing economic Depression for most citizens of the West. Assertions to the contrary by Mr. Geithner, the Obama administration and the \u2018eternal sunshine of the spotless mind\u2019 crowd of Western economists are evidence of whose interests they represent. Apparent in the recovery of financial profits without a recovery in household incomes is that Wall Street doesn\u2019t need a functioning economy to earn \u2018profits.\u2019 \u00a0http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2014\/05\/16\/obama-geithner-and-the-missing-six-trillion-dollars\/<\/p>\n

The Case for Reparations–<\/strong>Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. \u00a0<\/strong>By our unpaid labor and suffering, we have earned the right to the soil, many times over and over, and now we are determined to have it. \u00a0\u00a0 \u2014 Anonymous, 1861 \u00a0 www.theatlantic.com\/features\/archive\/2014\/05\/the-case-for-reparations\/361631\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Barbarism Rising. Burning Historical Landmarks to Make Way for Publicly Financed Hockey Stadium \u00a0<\/strong>Fire investigators have two big questions after a massive blaze tore though the historic, vacant First Unitarian Church on Woodward near downtown Detroit: How did it ignite and were homeless people trapped inside? \u00a0\u00a0 motorcitymuckraker.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/12\/who-would-burn-down-historic-church-adjacent-to-detroits-new-red-wings-arena\/<\/a><\/p>\n